I read this book with the intent to read a classic sci-fi from the times when the skies were still tempting and the Solar system felt within our reach. The book felt close to that but to my surprise, it turned out it was written in 1993. It’s still a 1960s book, just one that ignores large areas of the emerging tech and focuses on the dreams from the past. It has neuralink but the data transfer reminds me of floppies. The propulsion methodologies remained in the 60s as well, or at least sounded that way.

I found the prediction of societal changes more interesting than the tech area. The biggest one in the book is that Christianity and Islam merge and form a new hugely influential religion – Chrislam. Artur Clarke predicted that the massive mixture of people from these two faiths would lead to the birth of a prophet who will merge the faiths in one. Okay, this idea is cool, but how would that happen? There are so many problems that would need a resolution and remained unaddressed. Religion is not just about faith, it’s also about history and tradition and these have gained thousands of years of divergence. How do you undo something like that?

Perhaps some other book will imagine an answer while addressing at least some of mismatching historical claims, the spiritual differences, and the cultural problems. The common ancestry is not good enough. The whole asteroid approaching Earth problem didn’t help and was probably unnecessary.